ON THE ROAD CENTRAL AMERICAN STYLE

To get out of Costa Rica we had to go via Liberia to get the Nicaragua bound bus. From Liberia we needed the bus that travelled onto Rivas and from here we planned on getting a boat to Isla De Ometepe a volcanic island on the Lago Nicaragua. We were organised and although it was only to be a 2 night stop we were keen to get to the island. The bus to Liberia was on time and we arrived at the point where the long distance Tica bus would collect us. We had 3 hours before then so we dropped into burger king of all places for breakfast. I hate doing this and would much rather find somewhere proper but when its 8am and your pretty much in the middle of nowhere and your bus stop is a carpark and you want a clean toilet and you fancy a good coffee it has to be done, and the coffee is very good. We got chatting to a couple of english lads who were a week into their month tour of central america. Little did we know at this point how well we would actually get to know them. As the bus literally passes by a hotel car park after a burger 2 coffees countless trips to the loo just to be sure you didnt need it (its a mind thing when you know you cant go) we left there an hour before the bus was due.

The first strange thing was the fact that two other girls that were on the 9am bus were still stood waiting. It was now 10.30, strange. We figured they must have missed their bus as Tim has seen one pass about 8.45am. We sat on the floor and waited 11.30 came and went and the girls are still waiting too. This is where it gets difficult too as I needed the loo again and did not dare leave the car park for fear of the bus coming. Every bus that arrives in the distance your praying it´s yours and the frustration becomes tiring when you have been waiting over 2 hours at the stop and nearly 3 hours in burger king beforehand. Finally a Tica bus looms in the distance and we are get ready and feel instantly better. It is now 12.00, the bus pulls up and the guy gets off with the manifest. Neither us or the english lads are on it. This bus has the other two girls though and slowly the realisation dawns. This is the 9am bus, something was very wrong somewhere but the guy has gone before we get chance to question him. We watch the bus into the distance and try and figure out what is going on between the four of us. The security guard in the carpark gestures to us as another Tica bua appears, hoorah! It stops a guy gets out and looks at our tickets. Its not our bus either and he is not giving us much info other than 10 more minutes. Okay great thanks......Here comes another Tica bus this has to be ours it´s only 20 minutes since the last one, gotta be it. None of us are showing much enthusiasm though and we have all stopped picking our bags up. The bus pulls up, the guy gets out, we are not on his manifest either. We look puzzled, frustrated and hassled when finally the driver explains in Spanish that there has been an accident and our bus will another hour. What?? Another hour?? It was due at 10.30, that will make it 1.30??? arghhhhhhhhhhh. We thank the guy for his help after all its not his fault and rather deflated take up our positions on the carpark floor again. This holds other problems too as the last boat to the island leaves at 4pm, we are not going to make it. What to do?? were not sure and decided to see how the days plays out as a night in Rivas is not appealing. At least we can now go to the toilet though and we all trundle off one by one over the next 10 minutes back to burger king to use their very clean facilities. The english lads are pretty fed up and we all agree to cheer up and get on one things rather than winge about it.

Its 1.30, theirs a Tica bus in the distance, the guy pulls up gets his manifest out and hooray we are all on the list. We get on quickly and even though Tim and I knew we were not sat together we find our seats and are just happy to be on our way. The lads then realise there is a problem with their seats and one of them does not have a place. The bus is already underway and the door to the cabin is locked by the driver, we also know it is against the law to approach him anyway. At the same time the woman sat in the lads seats is gesturing to me to swap seats so that she can sit with her sister. The lads head down the back of the bus and I swap with the woman, she has a front seat and more leg room which is a result. The lads then take Tims seat at the back and Tim comes to sit at the front in the spare seat. Then one of the lads has to sit on the ledge at the back of the bus by the toilet. It was chaos for 10 minutes and Tim takes them his little pillow to sit on, bless his thoughtfulness. It is 2 hours to the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border and at least we are underway albeit not in ideal circumstances.

As arrive at the Costa Rica border and all get off the bus it is very similar to what we have experienced quite alot now but the lads look a bit worried and confused. They are also annoyed quite rightly about the seat and we suggest they speak with the driver while we hold them a place in the very long queue. They come back pleased as he has told them he will sort it out. We finally get into customs and are really disappointed not to get an exit stamp for Costa Rica. We hate not getting stamps!! The lads at this point are getting hassled by the money exchangers, their not sure of the rates so Tim advises them and they change some money. We hot foot it back to the bus and it pulls off straight away. The theirs a commotion further down the bus and a guy comes running up the isle and almost breaks the door down to the drivers cabin. From his expression and his angry exchange with the assistant who has now appeared on our bus some people have been left at the border. The guy refuses to go back, it seems they have been told to move on, the rest of it we did not understand but either way the bus is still heading to the Nicaraguan border entrance. As it turns out it is only a few minutes up the road and we figure the left behind passengers will have to walk it but they guy still looks like he is going to explode so we stay out of his way.

The border was bedlam not only that the bus drivers did not give us any indication what was going on. In the few minutes on the way there they had taken our passports for immigration which has really rattled Haz one of the english lads who was very worried he was not going to see it again. At this point we sort of took them under our wing and we assured them all would be okay. There was no organisation and it is probably the worst border stop we have done so far. We could understand the lads concerns and as we hung around waiting to see what was going off Haz seemed to calm down. After an hour still nothing was happening and I thought Haz was going to internally combust when our bus started to pull off. As it turned out the driver was only moving to the other side of the platform to make our baggage unloading for security checks easier. We took our bags and stood in line and then the most unusual and amusing thing happened. As we handed over our customs forms we were asked to press a button. If the light went green you could go back to the bus if the light went red you had to go for further checks. The more green lights the more people started to cheer, it was like a game show. We both got green and were fascinated to see who would get red. Can you now see how our boredom threshold has lowered!!! The area itself was over crowded and full of people begging and trying to sell their wares. Woman shouting, buses pulling in and out, kids tugging at your arm or asking you to buy their little home made trinkets made from palm leaves, it was utter chaos. By the time we got back on the bus my head was ready to split and the driver still hadnt sorted out the lads seats. They gave up and put up with the ledge for the remainder of the journey. We left the border at 4.30pm after we should have actually arrived in Rivas. The delay had caused us a nightmare and it was the same for the lads who were starting to worry about what they would do when they got to Rivas. We arrived there at 6pm tired and disappointed that we could not get to the island and the lads could not make it for their connecting bus. We all had to stay in Rivas for the night and the surrounding area looked like a dump. After a few exchanges with taxi drivers and a referral to our lonely planets we jump a taxi (the driver looks stoned I realise when we are on our way, I can smell weed in the car) he takes us to our first choice hostel which is full. We pick another one which is just round the corner and I go in to inspect the rooms. Lordy, lordy how bad can rooms be, well these are up there with India in fact at least Indias walls were painted. Its now getting pretty late and the lady showing me round the one ensuite and one double is very friendly. Its only for one night and we really cant keep trundling round so I go back to the guys waiting in the taxi and explain the situation. We decide to stay and the whole situation starts to get funny as the lads and Tim inspect the rooms. We tell the lads they can use our bathroom when they realise that their outside shower has no door, mmmmm. In the end we just dumped our things and headed out for something to eat. We have no idea how safe Rivas is and it does not get the best of write ups in LP but the nephew of the old lady explains there is a restaurant round the corner so we head there. We had quite a good evening as it turned out and our english compadres Haz and Steve make us realise just how much we miss our two. They are both 20 and Haz even looks like Carl. Still we will be home very soon. So we hit the sack and get a reasonable nights sleep.

Waking in the morning very early Haz comes knocking to see what we are doing. We decided we will head to the bus station with them as we have to get a bus to the port where the boat leaves. The lads are going to get a bus to Granada. The bus station is a 10 minute walk down the road at the back of a market and we arrive to absolute chaos. People shouting, gesturing and in general making a god awful racket as they go about their daily business. We see the lads onto a chicken bus for Granada and wave goodbye, I am a bit worried about them but we set off for our bus to the port. A taxi driver does us a good deal so we take a taxi instead, anything to get out of their!!! WE get to the port and a boat is due to leave in 10 minutes so we buy our tickets for less than a quid and head in the direction of the boat. When we get there we both just burst out laughing, the boat is not only very small but it is also very old. There is a small plank to walk over to get on and it is rocking about like it is in the middle of the ocean. Still were not waiting another 2 hours for the cargo boat so we tentatively cross the plank. The boat guys are very helpful as I try to steady myself and not topple over with the weight of our backpacks!! We get them off and place them on the deck we then sway across the boat deck to some small seats and sit down. This is going to be a rocky ride for the next 90 minutes but we are seeing the funny side of it all. The boat gets underway and we are pleased that the luggage is secured by ropes as it would just roll of otherwise. The journey is slow and I am glad not to suffer from seasickness as we ride the waves. When we do reach the island dock of Moyogalpa we had to decided where to stay. With the problem of yesterday we are now only have one night hear as our connecting bus is already booked and we cant change it. We are approached by a guy speaking excellent english and he suggests an area near the port. We take his advice and taxi and head for Charco Verde which is a 40 minute ride away. We check into a very nice place with a lovely room set right on the lake. With time of the essence we take 10 minutes to decide what to do and in the end get the hostel to order us a motorbike so we can tour the island for the afternoon.

Isla De Ometepe is two volcanoes, Conception at 1610mtrs and Maderas at 1394 mtrs. Lava flowing from the two volcanoes joined them creating an island. The island is on Lake Nicaragua which is central americas largest lake 8624 sq km of water. Forty five river flow inot the lake and is reaches depths of 70 mtrs, it is also home to rare freshwater bullsharks which are rarely seen these days. The setting is beautiful, peaceful and serene we drink in the views of conception as we wait for the motorbike to be delivered. The lake water is clean and clear and many people are taking a dip. The beach area is not really a beach but we both agree it is a great place to unwind. Unfortunately for us we did not really have the time so as soon as the bike arrived we set off on the road to explore. The bike is a trial bike and for starters it is much bigger than we expected but the main road is block paved so the initial first 30 minutes was pretty steady. We came across so very large birds feasting on road kill and stopped to take a picture. With conception looming on our right hand side we follow the road all the way top the turnoff for Merida. The road turns into more of a dirt track here but we set off to find the other volcano. The views are very good and we pass through small villages along the way. The lake looks very inviting in the afternoon sun and we are both really hot as we stop to take more pictures of the volcano. We reach Merida and decide that we would go back and continue around conceptions base. The clouds at the top are clearing and it is a very pretty view. After a few more snaps and water we take back to the bike and along the way try and find some pertoglyphs (ancient drawings) along the way. As it turned out the track up to the glyphs was not an easy ride and we struggled to find them. The enthusiasm was starting to wear off so we headed back to the dirt track road. We carried along here until we reached the point where we had originally turned off and continued along the way reaching another quite large town. Here we ended up getting lost and must have taken the wrong road because the dirt track got worse and worse until it was just volcanic boulders and it was starting to get dangerous. The bike was lumping and bumping along the track and at one point we almost came off. So after a heated exchange we took the sensible decision of turning back. We had been going around 3 hours and had seen alot and we both agreed it was not worth risking being hurt for so we returned back to the hotel for dinner.

After watching a pretty sunset we ordered some fish with veggies and potatoes. Both very hungry we were looking forward to our healthy feast. Well, the fish arrives a huge size with its head and tail. Although I know how to deal with this I hate cutting a fishes head off so I sat staring at it for a while trying to avoid it´s eyes!!! Tim sorted it in the end for me but as I started to tuck into the flesh I realised that I didnt like the taste. Sort of muddy and earthy it really wasnt very nice. The veg was over boiled and tasteless but the potato salad was lovely so I ate most of the while Tim ate both the fish. I went to bed a bit disappointed and Tim spent most of the night up being ill. Local fish will be avoided in the future!!! We woke the next morning with Tim feeling a bit worse for wear after a bad night. He avoided breakfast and we sat in the morning sun just relaxing. We had booked our taxi the day before to return for the boat which was due at 11.30 so we had a pretty relaxed morning. At 11.45 the taxi still had not arrived the boat was due to leave at 12.30 and we were going to miss it at this rate. This is so frustrating and stressful as we try and sort out another taxi which has to come from town. By the time that arrived we had about 20 minutes to get to the boat and we became resigned to the fact that we would miss it. As it turned out we got there just as it was pulling out the dock but to our good fortune there was another one due at 1pm so we waited for that. Originally our hostel had told us the next one was 3.30pm the info in Central America is both sketchy and varied it is a vast contract to our experience in South America.

So we got the next boat with the notion of taking a bus to Managua for our connecting bus out the next morning to El Salvador. Managua is a big city and neither of us were really keen to spend a night there so we decided last minute to head for Granada instead. As we arrived at the dock in San Jorge we met a young local lad who offered us a taxi to the bus station. We took the ride and along the way got chatting with him. He told us he would take us all the way to Granada for $30. This seemed like a really good deal as the day was getting on and we wanted to see as much of Granada as we could even though we would leave the next morning. So we agreed as neither of us were keen for the chicken bus option. We sat back and relaxed as he sped through the Nicaraguan villages and countryside for the next 90 minutes..........

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